The Hungry Cyclist - Pedalling The Mekong For The Perfect Meal

The Cycle Tourists Kitchen - Cooking & Cycling

Food and cycling are a perfect couple. As cyclist our bodies are our engines, our food and drink our fuel. I am any thing but a competitive cyclist, and I certainly don’t consider myself an athlete, but as a long-distance cycle tourist, fascinated by food, I completely understand that eating is an intrinsic part of any bike ride.

The food and drink we consume provides fuel for our muscles, repairs tissue and muscle damage and replaces lost electrolytes and other nutrients. Get your food intake wrong and it doesn’t matter how fit you are, you are going nowhere and are well on your way to experiencing the dreaded bonk.

Cycling touring can be especially demanding. Long distances are covered day after day in often-unfamiliar surrounds. Food and water can be hard to come by and for those with a delicate constitution that all-important fuel may not stay in your tank very long. However, with your bike laden down with the weight of the gear needed to be self sufficient on the road, all those panniers and bags provide a space for a few cooking essentials and supplies that mean you never need to go hungry for long.

When out on the road food is often cooked over a small fire or stove and having a few basic essentials will mean you have the ability to cook up superb campfire feasts that will provide sustenance and comfort. As a food obsessed cycle tourist who rarely gets in the saddle unless there is a promise of food at the other end here are a few tips for what to pack in a cycle tourists kitchen.

• 1. That’s Not A Knife!

Whether it’s a peasant pig farmer in the south of France or an immaculate Sushi Chef in London, a good cook anywhere where in the world will tell you that to cook well you need a good knife. I’m afraid anything that folds back into itself wont cut the mustard. Your hinge will fill with gunge, you your fingers will shorten and it wont just be the sulfenic acid in your onions making you cry. Invest in a good knife and keep it sharp.

• 2. Variety is The Spice of Life

Unless you are my mother 35 mm film is a thing of the past. However the trusty 35mm film cases are just the thing for packing spices. Compact and water-tight they are perfect for keeping a few essential spices and seasonings in. These can be refilled along the way if you find anything in interesting in markets along the way. Sea Salt, black pepper, dried chile flakes, ground cumin, paprika and cardamom pods are always in my panniers. Always have a head of garlic too!

• 3. Oil

It doesn’t have to be a cold pressed extra-virgin, but having a little bottle of oil in your panniers is well worth the weight. Oil is essential if, like me, you like to go to work on an egg in the morning and it also makes pasta and rice fare more palatable. Oil in a pan will also save you hours of washing up time. Take one small bottle with you and you will find local restaurants and homes more than happy to top you up as you go.

• 4. Stock cubes

When cycle touring size and weight matters. Spare space on a bicycle is a premium and on those long uphill struggles you systematically go through every item in your panniers trying to justify their relative necessity. Any thing small that gives you pleasure stays and stock cubes come into this category. Perfect for livening up a bowl or rice or a bean stew, a packet of sock cubes can be found in the smallest of shops all over the world, they take up little to no space but provide plenty of well needed flavour.

• 5. Good Coffee

I have a lot of weaknesses, but the black liquid is right at the top of the list. After a heavy nights sleep, and a previous days ride, getting going in the morning is never easy. Being able to brew up a mug of the ‘good stuff’ not only jump-starts the system but also helps brew some enthusiasm for the day ahead. Flicking a little cold water on a pan of hot coffee will settle most of the grounds, and your teeth will catch the rest. I take a special brewing pot. (If you like it strong make sure to carry loo roll)

• 6. A Chopping Board

You cycle with a chopping board! I’m afraid so. But hear me out. Its not a sanded down tree chunk favored by TV chefs but a lightweight piece of durable plastic that is alos the lid of a Tupperware box I store food in. Over the years it took some time to warrant its space on board but now it has a regular seat. Too many evenings were spent loosely hacking at onions and garlic in pans and bowls. And being able to prepare your ingredients on a clean, flat surface saves time and patience. It also doubles as a great fan for a fire.

• 7. A Bag of Rice

Rice is the staple of the world eaten from Colombia to China, Egypt to Indonesia. Cheap, easy to store, long-lasting, healthy and filling, when cycle touring the merits of this small grain are easy to understand. A cup of rice is more than enough to fill you up at the end of a long days cycling and cooking it could not be more simple. While cycling with an Israeli friend in Central America he taught me just how rice should be cooked. Here is the recipe.

• The Perfect Cycling Rice Recipe

1. Finley chop three cloves of fresh garlic.
2. Dice half an onion
3. Add the onion and garlic to a good size pan and sweat off with a good glug of oil. Cardamom, chile or any other dry flavours should be added now.
4. Once the onion and garlic has softened and begun to brown add one cup of plain rice.
5. Allow the rice to fry in the oil onion garlic mix so all the grains are coated with oil and a few are starting town.
6. Now add two cups of cold water and let the rice come to the boil.
7. Once all the water has been absorbed or evaporated leave to cool and your rice is ready to serve. Add the juice of a few limes and some finely chopped coriander for a real treat.

Giant Mekong Catfish

Having just written a post about the joys of cycle touring and fishing and which rod to pack when on the road, I am now having second thoughts about wetting my line in the muddy waters of the Mekong. The picture below will explain why.

The size and length of the Mekong mean it's an incredibly fertile breeding and growing ground for all sorts of fish but the Giant Mekong Catfish is the daddy of them all.

One of the largest freshwater fish species in the world the Mekong's giant catfish are only found in the Mekong river and its tributaries in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Local fishermen have previously caught specimens weighing over 300kg and more than 3m in length and reports tell us that over a century ago, the Mekong giant catfish could be found the entire length of the river from Vietnam to southern China and were abundant.

However threatened by overfishing and loss of habitat and spawning sites, due to changes to the river, including pollution, dam construction, canalization of river banks, port construction and the blasting of rapids, the Giant Catfish is now in decline. Industrial changes are killing off these majestic fish but the knock on effect is also having a direct effect on those who live on the Mekong.

Rivers have played an important and life-sustaining role in human societies for thousands of years, which is why many of the world's great cities sit on the bank of a great river. We use them as a source of water, for transport, for recreation, as a source of power to drive machinery, and as a means of disposing of waste. And of course we use them as a source of food.

Rivers continue to be an important source of food for societies around the world. Apart from being a rich source of fish, rivers indirectly aid in cultivation with its supply of water for the crops.

Catfish have been eaten for centuries on the Mekong and although scarce today are still cooked in many riverside homes in Southern Vietnam. Traditionally filleted and cooked in clay pots I certainly hope to try this giant of the river but also plan to research what can be done to help reinstate this magnificent fish.

Gone Fishing - Fishing and Cycle Touring

"Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration." - Izaac Walton

One of the questions I am asked most often by friends or when public speaking is what luxuries do I allow myself to take when I am cycle touring. Weight on a bicycle is imperative, life on the road can be hard and lonely, and with little to no space left in the panniers once you have stuffed them with clothes, tools, tents and food what luxuries you take must be small and worth the extra effort.

One of the joys of cycle touring is being able to trim my life down to a few bare essential, but I also appreciate a little luxury once in a while and anything that helps me while away those long lonely hours and helps me enjoy my own company gets my vote.

A small radio, watercolor set, herbs and spices, a good camera and MP3 player always come with me now and for this trip up the Mekong it seemed only right to invest in one more treat. A fishing rod. A keen fisherman as a youngster until now my bicycles and fishing rods have not gone together well, but after some intensive web research I have found the solution to cycle touring and fishing.

The Shimano Exage AX STC Mini Tele spinning rod is the perfect cycle touring fishing rod. Well built, light-weight and packing down to a tiny 30cm (that's school ruler small) , it stows away in its own tough case ready for a bumpy ride on the back of the bike. 

Along with my tiny Shakespeare reel and a simple box of lures, hooks, floats and jigs I hope to be joining locals on the river banks, enjoying quite evenings watching the sun go down behind the Mekong and fishing. And if all goes to plan and I'll catch some Mekong fish, cook them up and share the recipes here with you. 

• Read more posts about planning a cycling trip

The Art of Travel Film Making by Benedict Allen

Benedict Allen, author, explorer, filmmaker and motivational speaker is a tough act to follow. Best known for his arduous expeditions to remote corners of the globe,  in twenty years he has established himself as one of Britain's most prominent explorers.

But as well as leading the way in what he does for a living, Mr Allen has also pioneered how he shares his experiences through self-filming of authentic journeys for television. By not relying on a film-crew, he has allowed millions of people around the world to witness for the first time adventures unfolding genuinely in inhospitable terrain and this is a true art.

Busy taking in as many of BA''s clips before I go to South East Asia, if I can send back anything close to the quality of is footage from my camera I will be happy. 

"To me exploration isn't about conquering natural obstacles, planting flags... It's not about going where no one's gone before in order to leave your mark, but about the opposite of that - about making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself up to whatever's there and letting the place leave its mark on you."

Cycle Touring Equiptment - The Simple Charms of a Hammock

'Six hours for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.'

English proverb on Sleep

Why food? What's the obsession with food?

These are regular questions after I have mumbled my way through an unconvincing explanation of how I try and make  a living. I often reply that other than a genuine love of all things food and foods wider context in the way we live, when riding a bike all day, my only other substantial past-times are eating and sleeping.

Now this blog has the food angles covered, but what of sleep? As an eight-hour-a-night man, perhaps the sleepy cyclist has some legs for a future project, but for a cycle tour to be healthy and happy good sleep is vital at the end of the day.

Often on the road I only decide where to pitch camp an hour before it gets dark, so the locations vary from ditches to bus stops. However if you want that magical nights rest, the gear you sleep in and on is essential for the cycle tourist. A sleeping bag, cotton sheet, ear plugs and tent have gone with me on cycle tours before, but when cycling in more temperate climbs a new addition has made its way into my panniers. The hammock.

It is no surprise that it is generally accepted that the origins of the hammock began approximately 1000 years ago in Central America by the Mayan Indians. (The very place where I first started packing one when cycling). Shortly after Columbus pulled into in the New World, with hopes of finding gems, spices and gold he instead found the relaxed locals of the Bahamas, lounging in hammocks for their afternoon siesta. Soon, many European sailors, particularly the British and the French, found the hammocks very useful and practical for sleeping at sea and the rest is history.

I first fell in love with a hammock while crossing lake Nicaragua in 2006 but it wasn't until I traveled the length of the Amazon that I realized its practical charms. For six weeks while sailing from Ecuador to Brazil I slept in a light weight nylon hammock next to the locals who also crowded on board the cargo boats in more colorful varieties, but when I arrived in Belem and headed south I soon discovered that it soon replaced my tent and roll mat. 

Light, easy to hang, quick to dry and incredibly versatile, a hammock is a useful piece of gear for any cyclist tourist. All you need is a couple of trees, lamp posts, beams or whatever else will take your weight and you are set for the night. (I also carry a couple of lengths of nylon rope for versatile hanging.)  And it is not only at night that the hammock comes into its own. Cycling in the middle of the day in the tropics is crazy cycling and being able to quickly string a hammock and take a few hours rest in the shade of a tree is the perfect solution. 

Napping and resting insure your tired muscles get the rest they need for essential repairs and for my trip up the Mekong I have updated my original Nylon number for a larger model with a mosquito net. It weights next to nothing, cost £30 and is tough old boots. Coupled up with my poncho for a sunshade or rain shelter it is already serving me well and I am looking forward to rocking to sleep on the banks of the Mekong later in the year.

Sweet dreams...

What Video Camera for Cycle Touring? - Vado HD

Go to any tourist hot spot these days and you will see hundreds of people traipsing the churches cities and beaches viewing what they have come to see through the two inch LCD screen on which ever digital device they have chosen to record their trip. Be it an Ipod, a mobile phone, digital camera, camcorder or all of the above rolled into one, it seems that to travel anywhere these days you must record your adventures with the latest digital equipment. 

Huge advances in technology in the last five years, the most important of these being in digital memory and cheap lens production, mean that before long almost everyone with a mobile phone will be able to shoot, upload and broadcast quality HD footage anywhere in the world.

This of course has its pros and cons. In earlier posts I had admitted to being a fan of pen and paper and the idea of viewing the world through a small screen simply so I can bore family and friends with low quality footage has never really appealed. I very much enjoy photography but feel very uncomfortable wandering around in public with a camcorder and bearing in mind that most video equipment is clunky, fragile and needs chunky chargers (not great for the cycle weight watching tourist) I have always opted to leave the video behind. Until now...

Recently enjoying video footage from other cycle tourists out there such as Rob Lilwal and Dom Gill I decided it was time to move with the times and add some video footage of my trip to the blog. But what camera for a long cycle tour? 

I wanted something light weight, small, inconspicuous, durable, easy to upload from, multi format, easy to charge and with HD capability...Bring on the Creative Vado HD!

The Creative Vado is a tiny, bare-bones camcorder. I can use it to upload clips easily to YouTube or Photobucket, with one click. This pack of cards size device is built for sticking in my pocket or bag and for shooting video on the go (even on a bike), and then easily uploading and editing  my HD footage with the built in software Vado Central. This means I can have footage from my travels up on the blog in minutes from in the most simple of cyber cafes.

The Vado's 2in screen is a nice size. Contrast is sharp, colours are bright, and the display is vibrant enough for you to see what you're shooting and to play back videos in bright sunlight. The Vado HD is powered by an internal rechargeable battery pack, rated for up to 6 hours of video recording and inside the camera is 8GB of storage space, which is sufficient for about 2 hours of HD+ recordings.

The only problem I have so far is that the Vado software is not Mac compatible. Being the type of expresso drinking ex advertising purist who owns a Mac this is a problem, for now. I have never seen a Mac in a back street cyber cafe so I should be fine on the road and once I get my hands on a PC some here in the UK a test video will arrive here soon.

Painting and Cycle Touring

'A picture paints a thousand words.'

Not sure who said these immortal words but what better way to start my posts on cycle touring media equipment than with the second most old school of them all. After a pen and paper a tin of paints and a sketch pad has been the choice of explores and adventures for centuries. In today's modern world when video and photos can be snapped in an instance it may seem there is no room for brushes, paints and pads in a cyclists panniers but in my experience this form or recording a journey is second to none. 

Watercolor paints are light weight, durable and cheap and by sitting down and recording a view you not only rest mind and body but also really look at a subject providing you with an insight a camera can never provide. You don't have to paint a masterpiece, what you create is for your eyes alone, but by traveling with pad and paint you are joining a rich heritage of artistic nomads of which the Victorians were king.

In the early 19th century more and more artists took advantage of the opportunities for foreign travel, exploring new subjects in the landscape and cultures of other countries. 

Advances in travel technology meant artists could travel the world and paint, and with photography still in its infancy, many of the artistic interpretations that returned provided audiences back home with their only views of foreign lands. But as well as providing the public with exotic glimpses into another world these artists also provided scientists with visual examples of undiscovered plants, birds and other natural examples. Charles M. Russell's dramatic paintings of the Midwest of America are some of my favorites as well as Edward Lear's interpretations of the Middle East. 

In todays modern world when video and photos can be snapped in an instance it may seem there is no room for brushes, paints and pads in a cyclists panniers but in my experience they more than make up for their space onboard. 

 

I'm not claiming to be even close to Lear and Russell, but at the end of a long day in the saddle there is nothing more calming and restful than sitting down and having a little doodle. You will also never be short of thank you presents for people who put you up and the picture you keep will provide you with a lifetime of memories.

• See more of my paintings
• Read more about Cycle Touring Recording Equipment

What Equipment for Recording Your Bicycle Tour?

Media Media Media...

Having just had a little peep on Mark Beaumont's blog from the Americas I was left impressed and in awe not just of his tanned thighs and high speeds, but also the host of gadgetry he is taking on board as he records his journey from Alaska to Argentina.

Mark Beaumont's impressive flight deck.

In todays modern media world it seems that for an adventure to be a success it must be recorded and followed on various gizmos and then broadcast on numerous media platforms. Whereas in days of old adventures and explorers were lucky if they could send or receive a letter from a friendly embassy, or record what they were seeing with pen and paint, today you can fire information through the ether in seconds. 

It's impressive stuff. Todays modern adventurers and explorers can Tweet in the wilds of Alaska. Record and send video from a tent up mountain. Podcast in a canoe, photograph while hang gliding, type missives that can be sent in seconds and record routes and maps on GPS systems. But what is it all for? Is all this media harvesting in what travel is all about?

In the same way that Victorian explorers were funded by wealthy sponsors who then took a cut in published articles and books, the modern day journeyman has to pay for his endeavors and one of the best ways to earn on the road is through content. Video, photos, words and podcast can be added to websites with relative ease anywhere on the planet. If the content is good, the traffic is good and if you have good traffic you can make money! Either through cost per click advertising, sponsorship or selling other products such as books and lectures.

But alas its not really that simple. Competition is steep and collecting all this good content takes time and the equipment can be expensive, heavy and complicated. This creates its own problems. Any cycle tourist will tell you weight is everything and chargers and gadgets all add up. Flashing expensive gear around in poor countries can also lead to trouble and extreme weather conditions and gadgetry don't often get on. So what id the solution?

When I cycle tour I try and keep and keep it simple.  On a trip through the Americas I took a journal, a pen, a Kodak Camera, paints and a sketch pad. But times have moved on and in the two years since returning from Brazil I have researched and gathered together a media kit that I think works well for cycle touring. Alas, without any TV companies or impressive sponsors most of the gear has been sourced second hand on Ebay. But one mans junk is another mans treasure and here are the links reviews of  the recording equipment I will be taking up the Mekong. 

Click on the links below to find out more. 

• Samsung GX10 Digital SLR
• Windsor and Newton Paints, brushes and pad
• Ipod & ITalk
• Dell Axim PDA
• Creative Vado HD Camcorder

The Poncho for Cycle Touring

Cycling in the rain is never fun. Clothes become damp, water sprays up from the tarmac and more often than not restrictive rain gear is needed to keep you dry. But being wrapped up in synthetic material and rustling like a packet of crisps is tedious, especially when humidity is high and inside your Gortex weather-proof gear you are sweating like Meat Loaf on a tread mill. 

Having just come back from cycle touring in Taiwan where biblical rain could fall at at any moment and sweaty cycling in raging humidity was teh norm, my Gore bike wear jacket simply wasn't good enough. Although it may have kept the rain from entering in, inside I was left airless and sweaty. So what is a cyclist to do? 

On the 1st October I will be heading to Vietnam for a pedal powered food quest up the Mekong River and as I fly into Saigon the end of the rainy season I am in no doubt the climate will be hot and stciky. With this in mind I popped in to my local army surplus store, always a fine place for advice, and had a chat with the tattooed- decorated ex- military managaer behind the counter who pointed me in the direction  of a military poncho.

Having cycled in Mexico, I was suddenly filled with visions of cycling in tropical heat wrapped in a multicolored woolen blanket, all Clint Eastwood. But handing me a small dark green bag, I was soon unwrapping a popper-sealed green sheet with a hood that made me look more Col Kurtz than Clint.

 

After parading around the house, muttering such rubbish as 'You weren't there man' and feeling very 'Nam' I am finding that this versatile piece of kit more than makes up for its space in the cyclist panniers. As well as tying up into a lightweight waterproof jacket, that allows air to pass easily a poncho easily covers a back pack while hiking. A camera can easily hang underneath for that quick shot. It makes a great waterproof cover for the bike when camping. It doubles as a ground sheet and not to mention a tarp for when sleeping in my hammock.

(spoon not included)

This week I will be taking my poncho on a three day self supported canoe trip with Nick Weston of the Treehouse Diaries and if this short river trip is a success I will head to the Mekong full of confidence. I am fast discovering that the military Poncho is one of the most versatile pieces of equipment ever invented and it's good enough for the army, it's good enough for my camping/cycling needs. 

• to see my kit list from my Americas tour click here